To be honest I think it's worth pursuing getting the city council to change the regs. There was a well-publicized story on the news of a young kid who was around 10 years old and got his city to un-ban hedgehogs. I don't know if it would be easy to get in touch with him and his family to see how they did it, but it's been done by people with their only resources being a computer and a couple brains, and the time to talk to the city council.